Will the 2012 London Olympics Make Remote Working Mainstream?

As the 2012 London Olympics kick off, we at PayScale are monitoring a storyline that has nothing to do with sports and everything to do with remote working. London businesses in nearly every sector are encouraging employees to work from home as much as possible during the two weeks of the Olympics to cut down on traffic. Will this citywide experiment finally make telecommuting mainstream?

It isn’t just creatives and Web workers who’ll be asked to work from home during the Olympics. Librarians, bank executives, developers and financiers alike will all stay out of the office to alleviate the strain on public transportation and downtown roads. Experts overwhelmingly predict a rise in local morale and productivity due to the switch, despite the fact that the British are infamous in Europe for their long workweeks.

The aftermath of London’s grand experiment in telecommuting could be just the PR boost that remote work needs to bubble up to the mainstream. Do you think workers’ morale will increase after two weeks of telecommuting?